Federalist No. 15

The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the
Union
For the Independent Journal.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York.

IN THE course of the preceding papers, I have endeavored, my
fellow-citizens, to place before you, in a clear and convincing
light, the importance of Union to your political safety and
happiness. I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to
which you would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot
which binds the people of America together be severed or dissolved
by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation. In
the sequel of the inquiry through which I propose to accompany you,
the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further
confirmation from facts and arguments hitherto unnoticed. If the
road over which you will still have to pass should in some places
appear to you tedious or irksome, you will recollect that you are
in quest of information on a subject the most momentous which can
engage the attention of a free people, that the field through which
you have to travel is in itself spacious, and that the difficulties
of the journey have been unnecessarily increased by the mazes with
which sophistry has beset the way. It will be my aim to remove the
obstacles from your progress in as compendious a manner as it can
be done, without sacrificing utility to despatch.

In pursuance of the plan which I have laid down for the
discussion of the subject, the point next in order to be examined
is the "insufficiency of the present Confederation to the
preservation of the Union." It may perhaps be asked what need
there is of reasoning or proof to illustrate a position which is
not either controverted or doubted, to which the understandings and
feelings of all classes of men assent, and which in substance is
admitted by the opponents as well as by the friends of the new
Constitution. It must in truth be acknowledged that, however these
may differ in other respects, they in general appear to harmonize
in this sentiment, at least, that there are material imperfections
in our national system, and that something is necessary to be done
to rescue us from impending anarchy. The facts that support this
opinion are no longer objects of speculation. They have forced
themselves upon the sensibility of the people at large, and have at
length extorted from those, whose mistaken policy has had the
principal share in precipitating the extremity at which we are
arrived, a reluctant confession of the reality of those defects in
the scheme of our federal government, which have been long pointed
out and regretted by the intelligent friends of the Union.

We may indeed with propriety be said to have reached almost the
last stage of national humiliation. There is scarcely anything that
can wound the pride or degrade the character of an independent
nation which we do not experience. Are there engagements to the
performance of which we are held by every tie respectable among
men? These are the subjects of constant and unblushing violation.
Do we owe debts to foreigners and to our own citizens contracted in
a time of imminent peril for the preservation of our political
existence? These remain without any proper or satisfactory
provision for their discharge. Have we valuable territories and
important posts in the possession of a foreign power which, by
express stipulations, ought long since to have been surrendered?
These are still retained, to the prejudice of our interests, not
less than of our rights. Are we in a condition to resent or to
repel the aggression? We have neither troops, nor treasury, nor
government. [1] Are we even in a
condition to remonstrate with dignity? The just imputations on our
own faith, in respect to the same treaty, ought first to be
removed. Are we entitled by nature and compact to a free
participation in the navigation of the Mississippi? Spain excludes
us from it. Is public credit an indispensable resource in time of
public danger? We seem to have abandoned its cause as desperate and
irretrievable. Is commerce of importance to national wealth? Ours
is at the lowest point of declension. Is respectability in the eyes
of foreign powers a safeguard against foreign encroachments? The
imbecility of our government even forbids them to treat with us.
Our ambassadors abroad are the mere pageants of mimic sovereignty.
Is a violent and unnatural decrease in the value of land a symptom
of national distress? The price of improved land in most parts of
the country is much lower than can be accounted for by the quantity
of waste land at market, and can only be fully explained by that
want of private and public confidence, which are so alarmingly
prevalent among all ranks, and which have a direct tendency to
depreciate property of every kind. Is private credit the friend and
patron of industry? That most useful kind which relates to
borrowing and lending is reduced within the narrowest limits, and
this still more from an opinion of insecurity than from the
scarcity of money. To shorten an enumeration of particulars which
can afford neither pleasure nor instruction, it may in general be
demanded, what indication is there of national disorder, poverty,
and insignificance that could befall a community so peculiarly
blessed with natural advantages as we are, which does not form a
part of the dark catalogue of our public misfortunes?

This is the melancholy situation to which we have been brought
by those very maxims and councils which would now deter us from
adopting the proposed Constitution; and which, not content with
having conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to
plunge us into the abyss that awaits us below. Here, my countrymen,
impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened
people, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity,
our dignity, our reputation. Let us at last break the fatal charm
which has too long seduced us from the paths of felicity and
prosperity.

It is true, as has been before observed that facts, too stubborn
to be resisted, have produced a species of general assent to the
abstract proposition that there exist material defects in our
national system; but the usefulness of the concession, on the part
of the old adversaries of federal measures, is destroyed by a
strenuous opposition to a remedy, upon the only principles that can
give it a chance of success. While they admit that the government
of the United States is destitute of energy, they contend against
conferring upon it those powers which are requisite to supply that
energy. They seem still to aim at things repugnant and
irreconcilable; at an augmentation of federal authority, without a
diminution of State authority; at sovereignty in the Union, and
complete independence in the members. They still, in fine, seem to
cherish with blind devotion the political monster of an imperium in
imperio. This renders a full display of the principal defects of
the Confederation necessary, in order to show that the evils we
experience do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but
from fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which
cannot be amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first
principles and main pillars of the fabric.

The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing
Confederation is in the principle of LEGISLATION for STATES or
GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as
contradistinguished from the INDIVIDUALS of which they consist.
Though this principle does not run through all the powers delegated
to the Union, yet it pervades and governs those on which the
efficacy of the rest depends. Except as to the rule of appointment,
the United States has an indefinite discretion to make requisitions
for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either, by
regulations extending to the individual citizens of America. The
consequence of this is, that though in theory their resolutions
concerning those objects are laws, constitutionally binding on the
members of the Union, yet in practice they are mere recommendations
which the States observe or disregard at their option.

It is a singular instance of the capriciousness of the human
mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on
this head, there should still be found men who object to the new
Constitution, for deviating from a principle which has been found
the bane of the old, and which is in itself evidently incompatible
with the idea of GOVERNMENT; a principle, in short, which, if it is
to be executed at all, must substitute the violent and sanguinary
agency of the sword to the mild influence of the magistracy.

There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league
or alliance between independent nations for certain defined
purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of
time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future
discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of
the parties. Compacts of this kind exist among all civilized
nations, subject to the usual vicissitudes of peace and war, of
observance and non-observance, as the interests or passions of the
contracting powers dictate. In the early part of the present
century there was an epidemical rage in Europe for this species of
compacts, from which the politicians of the times fondly hoped for
benefits which were never realized. With a view to establishing the
equilibrium of power and the peace of that part of the world, all
the resources of negotiation were exhausted, and triple and
quadruple alliances were formed; but they were scarcely formed
before they were broken, giving an instructive but afflicting
lesson to mankind, how little dependence is to be placed on
treaties which have no other sanction than the obligations of good
faith, and which oppose general considerations of peace and justice
to the impulse of any immediate interest or passion.

If the particular States in this country are disposed to stand
in a similar relation to each other, and to drop the project of a
general DISCRETIONARY SUPERINTENDENCE, the scheme would indeed be
pernicious, and would entail upon us all the mischiefs which have
been enumerated under the first head; but it would have the merit
of being, at least, consistent and practicable Abandoning all views
towards a confederate government, this would bring us to a simple
alliance offensive and defensive; and would place us in a situation
to be alternate friends and enemies of each other, as our mutual
jealousies and rivalships, nourished by the intrigues of foreign
nations, should prescribe to us.

But if we are unwilling to be placed in this perilous situation;
if we still will adhere to the design of a national government, or,
which is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the
direction of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into
our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the
characteristic difference between a league and a government; we
must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the
citizens, --the only proper objects of government.

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to
the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in
other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience. If there be
no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands
which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than
advice or recommendation. This penalty, whatever it may be, can
only be inflicted in two ways: by the agency of the courts and
ministers of justice, or by military force; by the COERCION of the
magistracy, or by the COERCION of arms. The first kind can
evidently apply only to men; the last kind must of necessity, be
employed against bodies politic, or communities, or States. It is
evident that there is no process of a court by which the observance
of the laws can, in the last resort, be enforced. Sentences may be
denounced against them for violations of their duty; but these
sentences can only be carried into execution by the sword. In an
association where the general authority is confined to the
collective bodies of the communities, that compose it, every breach
of the laws must involve a state of war; and military execution
must become the only instrument of civil obedience. Such a state of
things can certainly not deserve the name of government, nor would
any prudent man choose to commit his happiness to it.

There was a time when we were told that breaches, by the States,
of the regulations of the federal authority were not to be
expected; that a sense of common interest would preside over the
conduct of the respective members, and would beget a full
compliance with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union.
This language, at the present day, would appear as wild as a great
part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought,
when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle
of wisdom, experience. It at all times betrayed an ignorance of the
true springs by which human conduct is actuated, and belied the
original inducements to the establishment of civil power. Why has
government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will
not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without
constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more
rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The
contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the
conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious
reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the
infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it
is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to
mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will
often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into
improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private
capacity.

In addition to all this, there is, in the nature of sovereign
power, an impatience of control, that disposes those who are
invested with the exercise of it, to look with an evil eye upon all
external attempts to restrain or direct its operations. From this
spirit it happens, that in every political association which is
formed upon the principle of uniting in a common interest a number
of lesser sovereignties, there will be found a kind of eccentric
tendency in the subordinate or inferior orbs, by the operation of
which there will be a perpetual effort in each to fly off from the
common centre. This tendency is not difficult to be accounted for.
It has its origin in the love of power. Power controlled or
abridged is almost always the rival and enemy of that power by
which it is controlled or abridged. This simple proposition will
teach us how little reason there is to expect, that the persons
intrusted with the administration of the affairs of the particular
members of a confederacy will at all times be ready, with perfect
good-humor, and an unbiased regard to the public weal, to execute
the resolutions or decrees of the general authority. The reverse of
this results from the constitution of human nature.

If, therefore, the measures of the Confederacy cannot be
executed without the intervention of the particular
administrations, there will be little prospect of their being
executed at all. The rulers of the respective members, whether they
have a constitutional right to do it or not, will undertake to
judge of the propriety of the measures themselves. They will
consider the conformity of the thing proposed or required to their
immediate interests or aims; the momentary conveniences or
inconveniences that would attend its adoption. All this will be
done; and in a spirit of interested and suspicious scrutiny,
without that knowledge of national circumstances and reasons of
state, which is essential to a right judgment, and with that strong
predilection in favor of local objects, which can hardly fail to
mislead the decision. The same process must be repeated in every
member of which the body is constituted; and the execution of the
plans, framed by the councils of the whole, will always fluctuate
on the discretion of the ill-informed and prejudiced opinion of
every part. Those who have been conversant in the proceedings of
popular assemblies; who have seen how difficult it often is, where
there is no exterior pressure of circumstances, to bring them to
harmonious resolutions on important points, will readily conceive
how impossible it must be to induce a number of such assemblies,
deliberating at a distance from each other, at different times, and
under different impressions, long to co-operate in the same views
and pursuits.

In our case, the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereign
wills is requisite, under the Confederation, to the complete
execution of every important measure that proceeds from the Union.
It has happened as was to have been foreseen. The measures of the
Union have not been executed; the delinquencies of the States have,
step by step, matured themselves to an extreme, which has, at
length, arrested all the wheels of the national government, and
brought them to an awful stand. Congress at this time scarcely
possess the means of keeping up the forms of administration, till
the States can have time to agree upon a more substantial
substitute for the present shadow of a federal government. Things
did not come to this desperate extremity at once. The causes which
have been specified produced at first only unequal and
disproportionate degrees of compliance with the requisitions of the
Union. The greater deficiencies of some States furnished the
pretext of example and the temptation of interest to the complying,
or to the least delinquent States. Why should we do more in
proportion than those who are embarked with us in the same
political voyage? Why should we consent to bear more than our
proper share of the common burden? These were suggestions which
human selfishness could not withstand, and which even speculative
men, who looked forward to remote consequences, could not, without
hesitation, combat. Each State, yielding to the persuasive voice of
immediate interest or convenience, has successively withdrawn its
support, till the frail and tottering edifice seems ready to fall
upon our heads, and to crush us beneath its ruins.